TECHNOLOGY
WE ’ VE COME A LONG WAY SINCE THE TURING TEST . CONVERSATIONAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE – NOW WORTH BILLIONS – IS A GREAT DEAL MORE THAN A SIMPLE TALKING POINT
In a matter of decades , talking to a computer has gone from a digital parlour trick for academics to emerge as a central part of the regular user experience for consumers and businesses . Alan Turing ’ s eponymous test in the 1950s started the process , a scientific attempt to discover whether humans could be convinced they were talking to an intelligent agent , not a series of bits and bytes processing simple if / then statements .
Progress was rapid , but went largely unreported in the broader media until Siri , Google Now , Alexa , and Cortana joined the conversation . At the same time , software chatbots spread like wildfire across the World Wide Web in an attempt to present unloved FAQ resources in a more userfriendly environment via machine learning and expert systems .
Today , the global chatbot market is forecast to reach around US $ 1.25bn by 2025 . This may represent a fraction of the global AI market – forecast to grow to US $ 118.6 billion in the same period – but human nature means we can expect significant growth in the conversational AI ( CAI ) space , say experts . “ It doesn ’ t matter how impressive a product is or how clean a website looks ,” says Colin Crowley ,
Senior Director of Customer Success at Freshworks . “ If a customer can ’ t get simple queries answered , updates on orders , or speedy resolutions to their issues , they will leave feeling frustrated and disappointed with the brand .”
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